


End of the Line

by frickincheng



Series: The Way We Live [3]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Character Death, F/M, no happy ending, vengeance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-09 14:09:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1985859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frickincheng/pseuds/frickincheng
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After 25 years, he failed her.  There would only one more thing for him to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	End of the Line

**Author's Note:**

> Somewhat AU...basically writing what would Aeler do if Dasha died. 
> 
> Mildest hints of noncon, if you squint.

He didn’t rage when they told him.  Perhaps he simply thought that it never would happen, not to her, not with him still there.  He protected her, and had done so for the past twenty-five years.  He had, he had, but the past didn’t erase the present, and wouldn’t negate the events unfolding at his feet.  

 

They brought her to him, body wrapped in a sheet in a futile, laughable attempt to preserve her dignity.  His hands didn’t tremble when he pulled the bloody cloth back from her face.  

 

Her beautiful red hair had been shorn short, nothing more than a red, uneven fuzz covering her scalp.  His hands shook then as his fingertips stroked over her waxy, inert features, all that sharp, intense passion, gone, leaving this doll who had stolen away his wife’s features.  He stared down and knew from her twisted features that she had died in pain.  

 

Many, many hours later they had come for the body, and he fought them for it, or at least tried to, lurching to his feet, kicking over the empty bottle of brandy, hand flying for a weak, sloppy punch.  It connected with Lenion’s jaw, but his son made no sound of pain, and didn’t push Aeler away, just grabbed him, fiercely, almost desperately, holding the larger form of his father, until the man stopped struggling, until his low, stream of furious, slurred curses slowed, then dried up completely.  

 

The tears came then, in a furious, frantic, storm, and Aeler clutched at his eldest, weeping, and muttering, over and over, “I was supposed to go first.   It was supposed to be me, never her, it was supposed to be me.”  

 

It took hours, but eventually the storm passed, but Lenion did not let go of his father, and held on to him, both of them sprawled out in the hardwood floor, eyes bloodshot, neither speaking.  

 

The funeral was a quiet affair, one that Aeler barely even remembered.  It didn’t matter after all.  She was gone and her body was buried away in the dirt to rot away, now dead flesh and not the woman he loved.  He stared down at the mound of fresh dirt, at the headstone sitting at the head of it, and the space marked out to the foot of it.  He had insisted on it, for a dog must lay at the feet of its mistress.  

 

“Soon.  Soon my love.”  He whispered to the dirt, but even that, even that was a lie.  She would go to her Halls of Waiting, and he would go….somewhere else.  Two halves of a whole, sundered forever.

 

Soon, but just not yet.  She had been killed by someone who had known her, that much was clear.  It would be his last service to her, far, far too late but it was the little he could do.  

 

It took only a little digging, as he nosed around the underlings of all the other organizations that were in competition with her, and finally, finally he got news.  

 

“He did it!”  The man screamed, eyes rolling in his head, struggling uselessly as Aeler’s hand worked deeper into the bloody pit in his side.  “Kemik killed your bitch wife!”  Aeler tore his guts out for that, leaving the man in a pile of his own viscera like a slaughtered pig to die.  

 

But now he knew.  Knew what he had to do, was he was going to do.  

 

Sati asked to help him, and he told her no.  She persisted, insisted until finally he struck her hard, once, twice, three times until her mouth was bleeding, her eyes wide in shock.  Aeler stared at her bloody mouth and shook, and when Sati saw the water standing out in his eyes she fell silent, and hugged her father tight.  

 

First was the whore that Kemik favored.  It was easy enough to find her, and she was haughty, proud of her status, and the petty power she thought she wielded.  Aeler left her out back, wrists nailed through the back of the brothel, face slashed to ribbons, insides of her thighs wet with blood.  No one found her until morning, her tongue cut out to stop her screams.  

 

Kemik had a partner in his business, Marroc, but more than a partner, a close friend, or so Aeler heard.  This man had a family as well, and Aeler got them as well, burning down their homestead, waiting calmly in front of the blaze for the man to come back.  He didn’t have to wait long, for Marroc came racing up, his face ravaged and wild with tears and grief as he stared at the burning house.   

 

He had put up a good fight, catching Aeler’s side, flaying the skin down his ribs, and landing a deep thrust in his thigh.  But Aeler hardly even felt the pain, his dark eyes glowing in reflection of the fire, pinning the man back against it, Aeler’s knife finally finding his belly, tearing him wide open.  

 

He needed to wait then, to heal from his wounds.  He hid in one of Archeron’s many safe houses, for Kemik had caught wind of what was happening, and Aeler was clearly the prime candidate.  Aeler knew this and was glad.  He wanted Kemik to know, to stew in his grief and pain, waiting, wondering if he could protect his family, for surely that was what was coming next.  

 

Six months of waiting, of healing, and Archeron’s network of spies, and he knew where Kemik hid, and he knew the number of guards that watched the house.  The house was deep in a forest, and so Aeler simply lit the forest ablaze.  It killed most of the guards, or they fled; they were merely being paid, and they knew they had been found, and none of them very much wanted to meet the elven witch’s barbarian.  

 

Kemik made it out, his wife, and young girl in tow.  He had almost run headlong into Aeler then, who had been waiting in the shadows.  The girl screamed at the sight of him, twisting out from her mother’s grip, running.  A knife flew from Aeler’s hand, snapping through the air like lightning, slamming between the girl’s shoulders blades, and she fell and did not get up.  

 

Kemik’s wife screamed, monster, monster MONSTER!  Aeler’s white grin reflected the flickering flames.  Kemik himself was unarmed, but he rushed towards Aeler, roaring, in defiance of the tears lacing down his cheeks.  It was simple really, the flat of his axe smashing against his face, breaking his nose and stunning him.  In that moment, Aeler grabbed the man’s wife, and though she screamed, clawed at him, he simply grabbed her by her hair, and shook her, the naked blade of the axe standing at her throat.  

 

“Beg me.”  Aeler hissed down at the man, who seeing his wife captured lurched forward with a cry.  “Beg me to save her life, and maybe I will.  Go on.” He pressed the blade against the woman’s pale skin, opening up a wound, and a small trickle of blood.  

 

“Please.”  The man whispered hoarsely, but as Aeler looked into his eyes, he saw understanding.  Aeler’s eyes glittered with the sparks popping off from the trees, barely noticing as they fell smoking at his feet.  

 

“Now you know.”  Aeler whispered.  The axe swung and took her head off with a meaty thunk.  Kemik screamed as if his wife’s death cry had been forced from his lips.  He rushed at Aeler, and Aeler saw the life dim in his eyes, even as he swung his axe one more time, the sharp blade shearing deep into Kemik’s skull.  Aeler yanked it out with a spray of blood and brains, staring down the corpse slumped at his feet.  The crackle of the fire roars around him, closing in, and his eyes slide shut, as he too sunk to his knees.  

 

“For you my love.”  He whispered out.  A pyre piled high for her, of pain, cruelty, and vengeance, full of the life they both lived and deserved.  

  
  
  



End file.
